Hurricanes locked in ‘ dance of death’

Neither storm is likely to hit land

“Think of the teacup ride at Disney or the Tilt- a- Whirl at your local county fair, but with tropical systems instead.” Weather Underground

Hilary may have outlasted Don, but could Irwin do her in?

A pair of eastern Pacific storms — Hilary and Irwin — are forecast to be locked into an ultimately fatal dance this week, with each spinning around like a meteorological fidget spinner.

Hurricane Hilary and soon- to- be Hurricane Irwin will pivot around a specific point by midweek in a phenomenon meteorologists call the Fujiwhara effect. One storm should then eventually absorb the other.

The effect describes the rotation of two storms around each other. It’s most common with tropical cyclones such as typhoons or hurricanes but also occurs in other cases.

“Think of the teacup ride at Disney or the Tilt- a- Whirl at your local county fair, but with tropical systems instead,” Weather Underground said, describing the phenomenon.

Weather Bell meteorologist Ryan Maue wryly tweeted that “Hurricane Hilary on clear path west to victory ... then comes Hurricane Irwin with ‘ Fidget Spinner’ and wreck.”

The National Hurricane Center says the “winner” in the Hilary- Irwin battle could be Hilary but acknowledges the storm’s “long- range forecast is a mess with the likelihood of some binary interaction with Tropical Storm Irwin.”

As is typical with many Eastern Pacific hurricanes, neither Irwin or Hilary is likely to have an impact on any land areas.

Although Hilary’s maximum winds are forecast to be around 126 mph, making it a Category 3 storm, it likely won’t be the world’s strongest tropical cyclone so far this year, Maue said.

That title goes to the 150 mph Cyclone Ernie in April, which remained off the northwest Australia coast and “bothered nobody,” he said.

Amazingly, two western Pacific storms, Typhoon Noru and Tropical Storm Kulap, also are locked into the Fujiwhara dance pattern this week, Weather Underground said.

Noru is the first typhoon of the year in the western Pacific Ocean, an unusually late date for the season’s first one, according to Colorado State University meteorologist Phil Klotzbach.

Storms in the Fujiwhara effect rotate around one another as if they locked arms and were square dancing.

As for Tropical Storm Don, last week it ended with a whimper in the Caribbean.